Alphonse Maria Mucha is most often remembered for the dominant role he played in shaping the aesthetics of French Art Nouveau at the turn of the century. As a struggling and relatively unknown artist of Czech origin, Mucha achieved immediate fame when, in December 1894, he accepted a commission to create a graphic to advertise the greatest actress of the time, Sarah Bernhardt. That first widely circulated artwork and those that followed were so revolutionary in concept and style that Mucha's art became widely known throughout Europe as 'le style Mucha'.